'A ruthless, coordinated assault': 2020 Democrats voice outrage over Alabama's bill that would effectively ban abortions and imprison doctors who provide them

Associated Press

FILE - In this April 24, 2019, file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., answers questions during a presidential forum held by She The People on the Texas State University campus in Houston. Sanders has a new foil for the 2020 Democratic presidential primary: former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden has been a declared candidate for fewer than three weeks and already Sanders has emerged as one of his most ardent critics.(AP Photo/Michael Wyke, File)

• Nearly all of the leading 2020 presidential candidates condemned a law Alabama's legislature passed Wednesday that would effectively ban abortions in the state and criminalize doctors who provide them.
• "This ban is dangerous and exceptionally cruel - and the bill's authors want to use it to overturn Roe v. Wade," Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted. Sen. Kamala Harris called the legislation "outrageous."
• "Abortion is a constitutional right," Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted. "What Alabama is doing ... disrespects the fundamental right a woman has to make decisions about her own body."
• Conservative state lawmakers have said in no uncertain terms that they designed the legislation to stand in direct opposition to the Supreme Court precedent in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973.
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Nearly all of the leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidates condemned a law Alabama's legislature passed Tuesday that would effectively ban all abortions in the state and criminalize the medical professionals who provide them.

Conservative state lawmakers have said in no uncertain terms that they designed the legislation to stand in direct opposition to the Supreme Court precedent in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973. They hope Alabama's will be challenged in state and federal courts and ultimately rise to the Supreme Court, which is now more conservative now than its been in decades and thus poised to chip away or even overturn Roe v. Wade.

Alabama's Republican Gov. Kay Ivey is expected to sign the bill into law.

The series of recent state laws imposing extreme restrictions on abortion have put reproductive rights advocates and Democratic lawmakers in a defensive posture on the issue going into 2020.

"Alabama. Georgia. Mississippi. Kentucky. Ohio. The assault on reproductive rights is happening across the country, and we have to step up our fight to stop them," tweeted Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who's centering her presidential campaign on issues that disproportionately affect women. "We're facing an all-out assault on women's constitutional rights, explicitly aimed at overturning Roe v. Wade."

Former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke called the Alabama measure "a radical attack" and vowed that Democrats will "fight these dangerous efforts with everything we've got in legislatures across the country."

Alabama's bill, which threatens to imprison doctors who provide abortion for up to 99 years, is the most restrictive anti-abortion measure since Roe v. Wade.

"Abortion is a constitutional right," Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted on Wednesday morning. "What Alabama is doing is blatantly unconstitutional and disrespects the fundamental right a woman has to make decisions about her own body."

The only major 2020 candidates who had yet to speak out specifically against the Alabama law as of Wednesday morning is former Vice President Joe Biden.

Read more: Women could get up to 30 years in prison for having a miscarriage under Georgia's harsh new abortion law

"Outrageous news coming out of Alabama," Sen. Kamala Harris chimed in on Tuesday night.

"This ban is dangerous and exceptionally cruel - and the bill's authors want to use it to overturn Roe v. Wade," Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted. "I've lived in that America and let me tell you: We are not going back - not now, not ever. We will fight this. And we will win."

Sen. Cory Booker wrote, "I will fight in solidarity with women to make sure rights guaranteed by Roe v. Wade will not be threatened by those who have no business making laws about their bodies."

Many other prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also explicitly condemned the Alabama bill.

"This law would force children - 12 year olds - to carry a pregnancy by their rapist," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Wednesday. "This law would force people w/ mental disabilities to carry pregnancy by rape to term. This law forces people to be pregnant against their own consent. It's horrifying."